New York Times Doubles Down on Pilot "Altercation"

Sekulow

Host Logan Sekulow critiques the New York Times for its framing of a recent pilot-led attack on a flight to Israel as a mere 'altercation.'

Key takeaways

• The New York Times faced backlash for using the term 'altercation' to describe an attempted terrorist attack by a pilot.
• Israeli officials are implementing rigorous security checks on all pilots flying into Israel following the incident.

Main topics

• New York Times media bias
• Aviation security and terrorism

Notable quotes

Our headlines and live coverage contain all the facts that we're able to confirm as we confirm them.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a warning against media sanitization of terroris

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) On today's show, the New York Times doubles down on his biased coverage of the Thordon 9-11-style attack against Speaker 8 (0:06) Israel. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow. Speaker 8 (0:15) We want to hear from you. Speaker 7 (0:16) Share and post Speaker 8 (0:17) your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. Speaker 8 (0:24) And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Speaker 4 (0:27) Look, I understand being careful and trying to keep your journalistic integrity in check. Because if we know anything, that is what the New York Times is known for. I'm Logan Sekulow. Welcome to the show. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. And I want to hear from you. Of course, we are still talking about that thwarted attack yesterday. It happened mid. attack, by the way, the 9-11 style attack that being reported right now from extremist pilot who from all we have seen now, we have some wild stuff to go over is this was sort of a known entity. This was going to be somebody who no one, it seems like inside who knew him was all too shocked to hear he would try to pull off this kind of attack, which again opens up a whole new can of worms. Now, of course, in America and stateside, they're going to do whatever they can to really diminish the true impact that could have come from this terrorist attack. The New York Times yesterday, we covered it. And of course, they got a lot of flack. They got a lot of flack because of a statement that they put out originally. that said, breaking news, a plane flying from Dubai to Israel was diverted after an altercation between the pilot and co-pilot, Israeli officials say. Now, hold on. Let's go back to me. We'll come back to it. So that was the original statement. By the time that this went up, most people knew what had happened. Sure, confirmations need to be claimed. Yes, did all everything need to get checked out? Yeah, but using the word altercation. is like saying that it was a two-sided argument that went awry, something that would happen at a dining room table or something that would happen on a sports team. As two teams faced off against each other, there'd be some kind of altercation. No, this was one pilot brutally stabbing another one. trying to take his life and then use his plane not only to take down the hundreds or hundred plus that were on board, but potentially use it as a weapon killing hundreds if not thousands more. But the New York Times did not frame it that way. They framed it again as an altercation. Now they have, instead of correcting their statement, putting out some sort of statement about that, they've decided to double down. That is as more information is coming out very clearly. And their statement and their response was, our headlines and live coverage contain all the facts that we're able to confirm as we confirm them. And then they decide to throw some shade at people like us. Unlike activists and partisans, we don't publish speculation or unverified information. And then, of course, follow along as we update our reporting. So again, throwing shade at anyone who is already calling this. A terrorist attack. I don't know who else was calling it a terrorist attack. The people on board. I don't know the people that worked on the airline. The people that knew this pilot. The people. In the Israeli government. Everyone was already labeling this. An attempted terrorist attack. And now we go over to. The Times of Israel. Which put out a statement. Just a few moments ago. Where they talked about. how this specific pilot, again, was a known entity, underwent a radical indoctrination. And you could find, again, they have reports of this. This is, again, from the Times of Israel, of his social media posts, which talk specifically about killing Jewish people. Speaker 4 (4:03) Now Israel is putting out some pretty strong statements right now. Fly Dubai flights have been suspended, temporarily suspended, as they're ramping up security checks now on the pilots. You know, you thought you had it. Now security's got to get even more so on the pilots. And according to a spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu's office, they said every pilot that's going to be flying into Israel, we're going to now know the pilot's identity, who they are, and do some type of security check ahead of time. Anyone that is going to be flying into Israel, I'll drop right now, is to do our best. Anyone who's ever flown in and out of Israel knows what that security situation is like. It is sometimes uncomfortable how intense it is. I want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. Again, the double down of the New York Times saying how dare those activists. How dare those partisans actually cover the news as it's happening. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Don't go anywhere and support the work of the ACLJ when you can at ACLJ.org. Speaker 4 (5:04) a miracle that no one lost their life in this attack. I mean, there's no other way to describe it. It was a miraculous moment and one that if had been successful, we would have a much different tone as we would have yesterday and today's show because we would have been dealing with a September 11th style attack just a few days. I mean, it's October 1st right now, just a few days from the third anniversary of this October 7th attacks. We are in the middle of Jewish holidays right now. A lot of my friends are over there right now. So I ask you to say prayers for all the people in Israel as they are somewhat celebratory right now. as this could have been a much bigger disaster. But we now know, and again, this is another sort of window that we didn't know we needed to check in on, which is, are we regularly checking out, and are people specifically in areas like Israel, regularly checking out the pilots that are going in and out of their country? You'd think if you went through this sort of rigorous training, most people are not suicidal in nature. Most people are not trying to do harm to themselves and then harm to others. But we know that that is a bit of the MO here, even if it's been 25 plus years since you've had a real successful version of this. But it was seconds away. They've reported that now under a minute away from where a point of no return where they would not have been able to right the wrongs and fix this after the nosedive of 14,000 feet in just a few moments. But thankfully they were able to get those pilots, both the one who was stabbed and the other one who then begged, by the way, to have his life taken by the crew. Because again, he probably knew in that moment, this was failed martyrdom in their eyes. Speaker 4 (6:53) begged for his life to be taken. So I'm kind of thankful that the crew and the Israeli passengers just decided to keep him pretty, rough him up a little bit. I think there was a lot of blood from what I could tell, but you know what? He survives. Maybe we can learn a little bit more about what goes on inside these minds, these minds that have been radicalized. I want you to hear from Prime Minister Netanyahu, bite one. Speaker 3 (7:17) As you know, the... the attacker, the co-pilot who attacked the captain is now being interrogated. But here's what we do know. First, we know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination. That appears to be something we're gathering from the information, his personal information. Speaker 4 (7:40) Yeah, I want to know from you if you're watching online you can throw this even in the chat you can call into but I want to know in the chat right now is this something you've ever questioned? Have you questioned when you get on an airplane whether the pilot who is there, not whether you think they were qualified, or whether you thought that that pilot... was going to cause you harm, was potentially working on an actual voight ray. Again, this isn't the 9-11 hijackers who then killed the pilots. You're talking about pilots themselves. Has that gone through your mind? I'll be honest, as someone who is not a great flyer, usually I put my trust in these pilots to do their amazing job of flying us to safety. And of course, very thankful for that. But now it's going to open up a whole nother thing. And what about just travel to Israel in general? I have not visited Israel in a number of years now, and I'll be honest. I've been wanting to get back aggressively since the October 7th attacks. We have our office there. We have people that go all the time. I have not gone. I've not been able to take my family. I really wanted to take my son on his bar mitzvah year. He's now about to turn 14. That's simply just not going to happen right now. And every time it feels like, and I feel for the tourism industry of Israel, I feel for the people of Israel, because every time it feels like it's calming down, something like this happens. And whether it's a missile attack, whether that's what's happened in the war with Iran, or now even these unknown, unthinkable questions of what happens when you're just in the air over Israeli airspace or in a plane full of Israelis slash Jewish people. Are there people who have been radicalized within our own country and in other countries who will do damage to just those passengers on board? I want to know your thoughts on that. Phone lines are open. You can also hit me up in the chat. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Again, social media posts have been uncovered saying that this was no shock. People that worked in the airlines said we had hired someone who inevitably was very clear, had terrorist intentions. Speaker 4 (9:49) You know, hijack a religious extremist, again, who, you know, that's the quote from the New York Post, we hired a terrorist. Now, that being said, you know, I think we have to be very careful with that because some of those languages could be very easily used against Christians and Jewish people. even some of the things that are traditions, but you do have to kind of get to the crux of the situation here. and to the heart of the situation. So we also have to be careful when you're dealing with this that you're not demonizing entire religious groups because it can easily fall back on you because what? You have traditions and customs that people don't think are normal. But do your traditions and customs involve the death of hundreds if not thousands of people simply because they believe differently than you? That is where we have to push back. And we also have to push back against our own press here in the United States who were so quickly to want to call this something that it wasn't. To just say this was an altercation, a fight that broke out in a cockpit. And, you know, thankfully there was some heroic passengers that saved the day. That is not what happened here. I never even heard of something like that really even happening. We've had, of course, incidents where a pilot has had some sort of mental breakdown and things have happened. Sure. But when it comes to this kind of intentional attack. It is a very, very different time. And again, the New York Times decided we're going to double down on that and say, how dare you go after us for calling it an altercation? It was an altercation. We didn't know any better. At the same time, every other, not only mainstream news, because a lot of them did in the mainstream news, but everyone, including the governments, including all the investigators who were talking, making statements within hours of this happening, were saying otherwise. But you know, you can't trust the words of the Israeli government. That's essentially what they're trying to tell you. That's like dealing with the Iranians, or it's dealing with someone else. We can't trust that Benjamin Netanyahu is going to... be straight with us, so we're just not even going to report it. We can't trust that Donald Trump is going to be honest with us when it comes to saying this was a terrorist attack. Who knows? It's putting that seed of doubt into everyone. Now, I'm thankful that most of you see right through it. Speaker 4 (12:07) But there was even a Fox and Friends legal analysis this morning that said the double standard for Israel has never been more blatant. A pilot stabbed the captain and tried to crash a plane full of Israelis. The New York Times called it an altercation. How quickly suspected terrorism gets sanitized when Israelis are the target. And that could not be more truer than right now. Speaker 4 (12:29) Look, it's me and you for the next 45 minutes. Rick Riddell is going to be joining us a little bit later. And I want to hear from you. So I want you to give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. People are asking some questions. We have learned that currently fly Dubai flights have been suspended. and that is going into Israel. So we know that's happened right now.